BILLERICA -- Residents crushed an ambitious $14 million proposal to reinvent the town center Monday night, obliterating the Town Meeting-approved project by more than 7,500 votes in a referendum that witnessed participation from more than 40 percent of the town's 26,000-plus registered voters.

According to the Town Charter, a vote against the plan would only reach ratification if more than 20 percent of all registered voters participated in the referendum.

Monday's referendum marks the first time in at least a century of recorded town history that a proposal approved at Town Meeting, which functions as representative-style in Billerica, has been repealed by registered voters, who killed it 9,084 votes against to just 1,467 votes in favor.

"These residents did democracy well today," an emotional Virginia Musker said, as the results started trickling in at Town Hall. "Something this big should never have come before Town Meeting."

Musker was one of the project's most outspoken opponents. She and others had accused town officials of trying to drive down voter turnout by scheduling the referendum for a Monday.

Town-only votes, Musker and others argued, have traditionally taken place on Saturdays.

There is no language in the Town Charter, however, mandating that referendums be held on any particular day.

The project's defeat marks the end of a fiery debate that has raged ever since the night of Oct. 11, when Town Meeting supported the plan by the necessary two-thirds majority vote.

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George Simolaris, the Andover Road resident who jump-started the seven-day petition drive ultimately forcing Monday's referendum, was also present at Town Hall as the landslide results started pouring in.

"Our residents got to get their two cents in," he said.

For redesign opponents like Simolaris and Musker, the biggest fear was that the referendum would draw a turnout of less than 20 percent, which would nullify any repeal.

Simolaris, a painter by trade, estimates he personally made at least 100 signs.

Help also came in the form of hundreds of professionally made signs that only started appearing on lawns last week.

Leading up to the referendum, there was not a single sign in town asking residents to support the project. That strategy, project supporters have said, was in direct response to the magic 20 percent turnout number.

In simple terms, a non-vote was as good -- if not better than -- a "yes" vote.

Outside the Vining Elementary School polling location on Lexington Road, residents Denise Doucette and Marie Managhan said they were not aware of any referendum until Nov. 6, the day of the national election.

On that day, opponents of the project had distributed yellow leaflets outside polling locations, hoping to drum up interest in defeating the project.

The only town-sponsored reminders that a referendum was scheduled for Monday was the old sign board at the foot of the Town Common and several print-out notices posted at various public spaces, like firehouses and at Town Hall.

Managhan said she thought $14 million was a waste of money.

"I really don't have a problem with the town center the way it is now, anyway," she added.

Reached after the results came in, Selectmen Chairman Andrew Deslaurier said he was disappointed the project was defeated but added that he "can't argue with the will of the people."

"Maybe we have to look at the language in the charter," he said. "The door for change is definitely open, if this shows me anything."

He noted that supporters of the project had a singular reason for backing it, while opponents could pick "a multitude of reasons" for defeating it, whether it was the $14 million price tag or the fact that it would have brought big-time changes to the center of town.

Those changes would have included returning two-way traffic to Boston Road, slimming Concord Road to a single lane and increasing sidewalk space along the common's business side, just to name a few.

"This was a six-month process," Deslaurier said about the length of time the project has been publicly discussed.

Town Manager John Curran, who had personally led the public through more than 25 presentations on the project dating back to February, could not be reached Monday night for comment.

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